Twitter Updates

Friday, 25 June 2010

Two weeks ago we launched a new website for our client ReclaimedBricks.com. The website generated its first leads within the first hour of going live and within 48 hours had generated a significant order. Today it’s pulled in an order that’s paid for the site!

At BrandSpankin’ our remit is to help our clients build awareness, generate leads and make more money – and what better example of our philosophy in action than the success of ReclaimedBricks.com.

Besides the fact that the ReclaimedBricks.com website looks great, we’ve done quite a bit of search engine optimisation work (SEO), so the website already features highly on Google for searches such as “Reclaimed Bricks”, ”Victorian Bricks” and ”Old Bricks”. Our aim is to build on this good start and use PR and social media marketing to keep building awareness and generating those valuable inbound links!

That way, our client will see a very significant return on their investment and we’ll have built a website that is more than just an electronic brochure – it’s a highly profitable sales channel!

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

We went live last week with the new site we've just completed for Reclaimed Bricks and we're delighted with the results.

The site looks great - high quality photography always helps - but more to the point, it is performing really well. It's number one in Google for the search query "reclaimed bricks" as you'd expect, but it's already above the scroll on page one for "old bricks" and "Victorian Bricks". "Handmade bricks" is on page two at the moment but we'll keep tweaking to get that up there too.

The site's traffic has been excellent so far - it was generating enquiries within an hour of going live and it closed its first piece of business (an order for £1,700) on Friday.

ReclaimedBricks.com typifies our approach to web design and build. The site has got to work hard to get the right traffic, it's got to have compelling copy and visuals - and it's got to give the viewer an intuitive journey that makes a sale a likelihood. The outcome has to be a site that acts as a sales channel and delivers a handsome return on investment for the client.

Thursday, 3 June 2010

More and more businesses are Twittering, Facebooking, Blogging and generally getting out there in cyberspace. Promoting your business in this way is highly relevant, it hits people in an appropriate context and it's absolutely free!

However, are you monitoring how many mentions you're getting online? This will help you understand the effectiveness of your online marketing. In short, are you awake to the benefits of keeping in the know? Google alerts will help you achieve just that!

Right first of all, how do you set up a Google alert? Start off by going to the following link http://www.google.com/alerts

It is really simple; just enter the key terms you want tracking. Then choose how often you want to receive the alerts and how many alerts you want to receive. After that, you'll get alerts via email covering news and developments as they happen. Being first to know, is a strong position to occupy!

You should follow news on a series of key terms that are of interest to your business, it's prospects and customer. This way you'll have some interesting market intelligence, you can keep track of your competitors and you can track any mentions of your own business. You'll ensure that you're up-to-date with the latest news, techniques and developments. In such a fast moving world it is important to be on the ball, it also means that you can react to news, tweet it, Facebook it or post it on LinkedIn.

Once you start reacting to relevant news and offering an interesting commentary, people will start to see you and your business as a valuable contact on social media sites. You will also ensure that your business is front of mind’ when they come to buy products; they will see you as an expert in your field.

Tuesday, 1 June 2010

I'm speaking this evening at "Valley at Work", the networking group set up by PEER in Rossendale.

I'm speaking on 'Low-cost marketing and social media marketing for small businesses' at the Russian Tea Rooms in Bacup. I'm looking forward to it for several reasons, but not least because Valley at Work is something I'd like to see replicated in Pendle - I think it's potentially very powerful to have a community enterprise board working closely with a business networking group.

I chair "Enterprising Pendle" - PEER's sister organisation - and it's a model I'm very keen for us to adopt in Pendle.

Tonight I'll be talking about the social media landscape, it's pitfalls and opportunities - but most of all I'll be reiterating the message - measure, monitor, analyse and adjust. This help you to ensure that your marketing spend is doing it's job. It's all about return-on-investment - which requires people to not put the medium before the message.